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The original meaning of dichroic, from the Greekdikhroos, two-coloured, refers to any optical device which can split a beam of light into two beams with differing wavelengths. Such devices include mirrors and filters, usually treated with optical coatings, which are designed to reflect light over a certain range of wavelengths, and transmit light which is outside that range. An example is the dichroic prism, used in some camcorders, which uses several coatings to split light into red, green and blue components for recording on separate CCD arrays, however it is now more common to have a Bayer filter to filter individual pixels on a single CCD array. This kind of dichroic device does not usually depend on the polarization of the light. The term dichromatic is also used in this sense.

The second meaning of dichroic refers to a material in which light in different polarization states traveling through it experiences a different absorption coefficient. This is also known as diattenuation. When the polarization states in question are right and left-handed circular polarization, it is then known as circular dichroism. Since the left- and right-handed circular polarizations represent two spin angular momentum (SAM) states, in this case for a photon, this dichroism can also be thought of as Spin Angular Momentum Dichroism.

In some crystals[which?], the strength of the dichroic effect varies strongly with the wavelength of the light, making them appear to have different colours when viewed with light having differing polarizations.[dubious– discuss] This is more generally referred to as pleochroism,[2] and the technique can be used in mineralogy to identify minerals. In some materials, such as herapathite (iodoquinine sulfate) or Polaroid sheets, the effect is not strongly dependent on wavelength.